Marvel Moving Forward with DOCTOR STRANGE Movie?

As the Summer of Superheroes comes to an end with the release of Captain America: The First Avenger, audiences are starting to look to next year and beyond to see what costumed good-looking people will be gracing our theaters in the coming summers. While we expect more sequels to superheroes we’ve already been introduced to (and reboots of superheroes we’ve grown tired of), there may be a couple new superheroes on the way as well.

We’ve known that Marvel has been developing films based on lesser-known characters for a while now, but we’ve recently seen some movement on these “in-development” titles. Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish just turned in the latest draft for Ant-Man, and now word comes that a script for the Doctor Strange movie has been completed and Marvel is currently looking for a director. Hit the jump for more details.

In June of last year, we reported that screenwriters Thomas Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer (Conan the Barbarian) had been tapped to get to work on a screenplay for a feature film version of the mystical superhero Doctor Strange. In the meantime, Marvel President of Production Kevin Feige has been mum on the film’s details, but has been promising development.

Well now Twitch Film reports that Donnelly and Oppenheimer just turned in their script and Marvel is now moving forward with the property, sending the script out to a number of directors that are on their shortlist for the job. They’re looking to attach a director to “oversee continued development” of the property. While that sounds like a Doctor Strange film may still be a ways off, the fact that Marvel’s looking for a director means they’re getting serious.

If you’re unfamiliar with the property, Doctor Strange centers on a surgeon who is becomes Sorcerer Supreme of the Marvel Universe following a serious car accident. Endowed with magical powers, Strange protects Earth from outside attacks. While one may have assumed that general audiences wouldn’t be up for a mystical superhero, the box office numbers for Thor seem to have convinced the higher-ups otherwise. Whether we get a Doctor Strange movie sooner or later, it sounds like Marvel won’t be suffering from superhero fatigue anytime soon.